ns, ornamented with their arms and
banners. The seats reserved for the noble ladies and gentlemen who
came to see the fight were hung with tapestry embroidered with gold
and silver. Everyone was dressed in the most sumptuous manner: the
minstrels and heralds were clothed in the costliest garments; the
knights who were engaged in the sports and their horses were most
gorgeously arrayed. The whole scene was one of great splendour and
magnificence, and, when the fight began, the shouts of the heralds
who directed the tournament, the clashing of arms, the clang of
trumpets, the charging of the combatants, and the shouts of the
spectators, must have produced a wonderfully impressive and exciting
effect upon all who witnessed the strange spectacle.

The regulations and laws of the tournament were very minute. When
many preliminary arrangements had been made with regard to the
examination of arms and helmets and the exhibition of banners, &c.,
at ten o'clock on the morning of the appointed day the champions and
their adherents were required to be in their places. Two cords
divided the combatants, who were each armed with a pointless sword
and a truncheon hanging from their saddles. When the word was given
by the lord of the tournament, the cords were removed, and the
champions charged and fought until the heralds sounded the signal to
retire. It was considered the greatest disgrace to be unhorsed. A
French earl once tried to unhorse our King Edward I. when he was
returning from Palestine, wearied by the journey. The earl threw
away his sword, cast his arms around the king's neck, and tried to
pull him from his horse. But Edward put spurs to his horse and drew
the earl from the saddle, and then shaking him violently, threw him
to the ground.

The joust (or just) differed from tournament, because in the former
only lances were used, and only two knights could fight at once. It
was not considered quite so important as the grand feat of arms
which I have just described, but was often practised when the more
serious encounter had finished. Lances or spears without heads of
iron were commonly used, and the object of the sport was to ride
hard against one's adversary and strike him with the spear upon the
front of the helmet, so as to beat him backwards from his horse, or
break the spear. You will gather from these descriptions that this
kind of sport was somewhat dangerous, and that men sometimes lost
their lives at these encount